Metro News & Reviews

Final Update: Gold Line trains resume normal service

Update, 10:30 p.m.: Gold Line trains have resumed normal service and bus shuttles are cancelled. Repairs to the overhead power supply system have been completed. Trains will also run on a normal schedule with start of service on the morning of April 25.

Metro would like to thank all riders for their patience as repairs took place.

Update, 3:43 p.m.: Buses will continue to replace Gold Line trains between Fillmore Station and Southwest Museum Station during this afternoon’s rush hour commute. Please allow extra travel time or consider these alternate route options to bypass incident area:

Update, 6:30 a.m.: The Gold Line is now running every 10 minutes with northbound trains traveling to Southwest Museum and turning back to East LA. Southbound trains travel to Fillmore and turn back to APU/Citrus Station in Azusa.

A shuttle train is operating approximately every 30 minutes in both directions between Southwest Museum, Highland Park, South Pasadena and Fillmore stations. Supplementary buses are also available in both directions between Southwest Museum, Highland Park, South Pasadena and Fillmore stations.

Buses will board outside of each station, except Highland Park — where riders will need to board at Figueroa/Avenue 59. Thank you for your patience as staff continues to complete emergency repairs.

UPDATE – Tuesday, April 24, 3 a.m.: Due to ongoing repair work, buses will replace trains between Fillmore Station and Southwest Museum Station when service begins on the Gold Line this morning. Please allow extra travel time or consider the alternate route options listed below to bypass incident area.

Update, 8 p.m.: In order to allow crews to complete repair work safely, both tracks will close between Fillmore Station and Southwest Museum Station now through the close of service tonight. Bus shuttles will replace train service in this area during this time. Buses will board outside of each station, except Highland Park — where riders will need to board at Figueroa/Avenue 59.

Gold Line trains will continue to run every 20 minutes between APU/Citrus College and Fillmore Station, and between Southwest Museum and Atlantic Station.

We will provide an update before start of service tomorrow with what to expect, please check back here, at metro.net or on Twitter @metrolaalerts.

Update, 1:35 p.m.: Ongoing repairs are still underway and Gold Line service will be impacted during this afternoon’s rush hour commute. More than 100 feet of overhead wire needs to be repaired. Here are the service details:

Starting at 3 p.m. trains will run every 10 minutes with all northbound trains turning back at Southwest Museum and returning to Atlantic Station. Additionally, all southbound trips from APU/Citrus will end at Fillmore Station in Pasadena and return to APU/Citrus College Station in Azusa.

A shuttle train will run approximately every 30 minutes in both directions between Southwest Museum, Highland Park, South Pasadena and Fillmore stations.

Supplementary buses will also be available in both directions only between Southwest Museum, Highland Park, South Pasadena and Fillmore stations. Buses will board outside of each station, except Highland Park — where riders will need to board at Figueroa/Avenue 59.

There is no estimate on when normal Gold Line service will be restored. Metro thanks you for your patience as staff works to complete emergency repairs as soon as possible.

Due to damaged overhead wires near South Pasadena Station, Gold Line trains are operating every 30 minutes and sharing the Union Station-bound track at Fillmore, South Pasadena and Highland Park Stations.

There is significant crowding on the trains and we know that this was a very tough morning commute. Metro apologizes for any inconvenience. Metro crews are on the scene. The overhead wires deliver power to the trains; the damage occurred overnight and Metro issued the first service alert at 3:27 a.m. with several following.

Supplementary buses are available at each station between Del Mar and Union Station. Shuttle stops locations are:

Fillmore Station–buses board/drop off on Raymond, nearside of Fillmore St. Way

South Pasadena –buses board/drop off on Mission, nearside of Meridian Ave.

Highland Park–buses board/drop off on Ave 57, nearside of Marmion Way

Southwest Museum–board/drop off on Marmion Way, farside Museum Dr.

Heritage Square–board/drop off on Marion Way-Pasadena Ave, farside of French Ave.

Lincoln Cypress–board/drop off on Ave 26, farside of Lacy St.

Chinatown–board/drop off on Spring St-Alameda Ave, nearside of College St.

Union Station–board/drop off at bus bay 4 or 5 Shuttle riders at Union Station will be dropped off or picked up at Bus Bay 4 and 5. Metro crews are currently on scene assessing damages to make the necessary repairs.

This has happened many times in the past in roughly this same area. Why has Metro failed to properly address this and actually permanently fix the track section? Every time this happens it is always a multi-day repair and the alternatives you offer are sorely lacking.

Hopefully they will get the repairs up and running. I’ve never experienced such a delay in riding and being late to the job. The rail is something that I’ve come to greatly depend upon as of late. Go Metro! Please fix the delays as fast as your crew possibly can.

Ryan is right – is this section of the system held together with toothpicks and bubble gum, or what? I mean, the Gold Line is generally great – clean, fast, convenient – when it works. But when it breaks, it’s as if Metro is caught completely unawares EVERY TIME and has NO Plan B at all. So they cobble together some lame “workaround,” and appear to be taken totally by surprise when trains that normally run every 6 minutes become hideously overcrowded when forced by a single track to run only every 30 minutes. Does it really take a rocket scientist to realize that such infrequent trains need correspondingly higher capacities (or maybe a “caravan” of trains one or two minutes apart)? “Supplementary buses?” One of my fellow passengers said she waited 45 minutes for a bus that never came. And a co-worker reported that during a previous breakage, on a bus to the Highland Park station, the driver had no clue where he was going and had to be directed by the passengers! These are not serious efforts to “Keep LA Moving.” Instead of devising meaningful strategies to foresee, prevent, and address future problems, we once again hear the tired, sad refrain, “Metro apologizes for any inconvenience.” I think there should be public hearings to determine whether Metro is in the business of providing transportation or just excuses.

Ugh. This happened a few years ago between Highland Park and South Pasadena, and I was on one of those buses where the driver didn’t know how to get to the station on the other end. I’m assuming it’s not the driver’s fault; maybe Metro doesn’t have enough staff to send drivers familiar with the local geography? The driver did, however, feel free to wildly speculate on the mental health of one of the people involved in the accident that caused the delay. Either way, it does not instill confidence.

I attempted to take an alternate route today to/from work at the learning about the problem this morning when I arrived at the Fillmore station at 6:23 AM …Had absolutely no problem taking the 260 to the 79A in the a.m. in the afternoon it was a completely different story-instead of using the goal line… I took the number 79A to the number 260 and the 260 never came…I waited at the corner of South Fairoaks going northbound and Spruce Street for 30+ plus minutes… fortunately someone that lives in my neighborhood saw me standing at the bus stop waiting for the 260 and graciously gave me a ride home…I left work at 4pm I did not arrive at my home until 630…arrived home 1.5 hrs later than if the train was working properly

It’s actually embarrassing how often Metro rail is out of service and how long it takes the service to get back up and running. Sure, NYC, DC, Chicago, etc. have delays from time to time, but they are 10 minutes and the system is back up and running very shortly. In LA it seems like the delays last hours or days despite the fact that LA is the best funded on a per-passenger basis. Is it just incompetence on Metro’s part?

This is major embarrassment and it makes me sick that there are actually people in LA that actually call our joke of a transit system world class.

The fact that Metro not only has no deadline for when work will be complete only demonstrates why ridership continues to lower.

If everyone thinks only the taxi industry was severely impacted by Uber and Lyft, just wait until they finally start operating their own Transit system. Express Pool is just the start of what can eventually expand into a transit system you know. And all this may be the result of circumstances like this one.

Anyone has a problem at the thought of Uber operating transit?? Well, it’s time to tell transit agencies in the US to start treating the system serious themselves in addition to us as people, otherwise this will continue to Happen.

Oh and fix the real time arrivals please. I was literally about a 60 sec walk from the Gold Line platform at LAUS, was told on the Metro app train to Azusa arrives in 3 min, walk up to the platform and I see the train has just departed. And now I wait 22 min.

I don’t understand why it takes so long for Metro to repair and restore the service. It is more than 36 hours now since the service disrupted. It is not acceptable and must never occur again on any rail. I think Metro should offer a day for free ride on the Gold Line as to show apology and compensate all affected riders.

To be fair to the crews working on it, if we don’t understand why it takes so long maybe it’s not fair to deem it unacceptable. Definitely wish Metro was a bit more transparent…but what do I know; maybe there is a security concern.

A suggestion to Metro: when a damage like this happens, you should encourage people to take the bus that goes to downtown. For example at the Arcadia and Sierra Madre train stations, there are also buses that layover there that could have taken the passengers. Also, at the point of the damage, since you know 95% of the people want to go to union station anyway, why not just have the shuttle take them all the way? set up two shuttles to go direct to union station and one that makes all the in between stops?

Will Metro address and identify what the actual issue is with this section of track? This is not an isolated incident but one that has repeatedly happened in this area. Obviously the problem with this section of track and overhead line is bigger than you elude to and needs to be identified and addressed.

This morning (4/25), I saw in the Alerts section of your GoMetro app on my iPhone that you were still showing the “Metro Gold Line 804: Buses replace service between Fillmore and Southwest Museum due to ongoing repairs” alert that was there yesterday. The electronic signs at Del Mar Station were saying the same thing. However, when I boarded the Gold Line train at Del Mar Station at approximately 7:00am, we were not asked to disembark at Fillmore and board a shuttle bus. Instead, the train proceeded on its normal route with no unusual stops or delays. It is now 1:00pm, and I see that the same alert is STILL being shown in your GoMetro app on my iPhone. Why haven’t you updated the Alerts in your app yet to remove that now-obsolete message? Isn’t your app supposed to be providing up-to-the-minute real-time information? There seems to be very little reason for me to trust the information in your app if you are still telling users about a service disruption that apparently was ended HOURS ago, perhaps even overnight. And now I’m leaving this feedback here because when I tried to submit it by using the Mobile App Feedback link, I was presented with a form for entering my name, email address, and comments — but no Send or Submit button! I tried in Firefox, Edge, and Internet Explorer — and it was the same in all three browsers. L.A. Metro needs to get its…(ahem) “act” together.